


Young And Beautiful

by BadWolf256



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:33:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25732897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadWolf256/pseuds/BadWolf256
Summary: Author's Note: This is honestly just a one-shot that wouldn't leave me because I wanted to write something hopeful for once for Elejah. That's honestly all that this is. As always, I hope that you guys enjoy!
Relationships: Elena Gilbert/Elijah Mikaelson
Kudos: 31





	Young And Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> **Author's Note: This is honestly just a one-shot that wouldn't leave me because I wanted to write something hopeful for once for Elejah. That's honestly all that this is. As always, I hope that you guys enjoy!**

In the haze of a long day in winter, Elena walks by herself.

It’s a cold afternoon in the city, and she walks the streets on her own. She wears her sweaters buttoned up to her neck, holds her head up against the harsh, icy breeze. _You’ve been here too long,_ says the voice in her head. She cannot tell who it belongs to, and these days, she doesn’t much care. In the dirge of the chill she remembers a few things her mother once said; those stupid, flighty things that she’d thought would help her someday. And Elena thinks that none of them ever mattered.

She was still doomed, in the end.

But the hand that is pulling at her, here in the din of the half-empty play-park where teh crocuses snap up in spring, is telling her differently. Elena _knows_ that hand’s pressure. Knows the scent it brings with it, or whiskey and autumn and yeast covered in powdered sugar. She _knows_ the dark eyes that are waiting for her to stop thinking so loudly and turn. So what if he isn’t real? So what if Elena has no one? She still remembers what she used to think, about him. That the world couldn’t hurt her, as long as Elijah was there. _You can end it,_ she thinks, _You can tell him you’re doing alright._ But the hand on her wrist brooks no argument, and it will not abide by her lies. His fingers are pressed at her pulse point; she wants them stroking her cheek.

“Lovely Elena,” He says, when she finds the courage to face him. “I thought that you’d lost yourself.”

_Maybe I have,_ Elena thinks, _What would you know about that?_

Elijah still looks like himself.

There’s the same dark line to the cut of him, the same tenseness concealed by his poised, panther-like elegance. There’s the same fierce and unyielding gleam in his eyes, and still, after all of these years, they do not break contact with hers. He looks into her like he’s looking straight into her soul, and she knows he will loathe what he finds there.

“You left them,” He says. A long moment passes between them, and she thinks they could be who they used to, back when she called him a friend. _Not a friend,_ she thinks, _An ally. People like me don’t_ have _friends._ The way that he holds at her shows her something about him that she didn’t know until now, and she hates herself for it twice over, the way that she let him slip through the cracks without so much as saying goodbye. She wonders if he’s thought about her as much as she’s thought about him; decides that she cannot risk asking.

“Yeah,” She tells him, “I did.”

It is meant to sound more confident, less like she’s floundering. Elena remembers this, too - how Elijah makes her speechless as if knowing, already, the secrets she’s hiding away. Elena thinks they might finally wound him, this time. Wonders what wounding him _means._ But he smiles, pleased, to himself, and she wonders if he has been waiting for this. To encounter her here, in the city he _owns,_ without the Salvatores all over her. Elena blinks, and Elijah’s grip on her loosens. He must understand that she’s human. That, after all, she is _running,_ and cannot afford to look back. The slightest smirk curls onto his lips. It is that time again, thinks Elena, when Elijah will ask how she got here, and where she is planning to go. She is grateful, then, when he pulls her flush against him instead. Before she can protest, he’s swinging her up in his arms, burying her face into his suit coat and lifting her off of her feet. They could rock there, she thinks, for an eternity all of their own. She could leave herself here in his hands, nose bunched into the sweet-smelling warmth of his jacket, the pressure of his hands keeping her safe from the past.

“Elena,” He says, when he sets her back down, “Whatever has _happened_ to you?”

Really, she thinks, as she blinks away teardrops, she should have known he would ask.

“The same thing that always happens,” She tells him. “I broke someone’s heart and they left me. Didn’t feel like staying in town, after that. It was just - too hard, for me.”

Elena recalls how he doesn’t let his mask slip; sucks in a nervous gulp when a flash of of pure fury flits across his brilliant features and finds herself stepping back.

“Forgive me,” He tells her, after a stifling pause. His hands are balled up at his sides, and the tension bleeds out of them first. He flexes his fingers - those long, _perfect_ fingers - and raises one hand up to reach her. Bites out a sigh, lets it drop. She shakes her head softly at him.

“It wasn’t your fault,” She tells him. This too, she thinks, is a lie. It is _everything_ to do with him, though she had not realized it yet. It was Elijah who let her make her own choices. Elijah who let her care, even when he knew that it made no difference. He lets out the smallest and bitterest noise.

“Lovely Elena,” He tells her, “That is not what I asked your forgiveness for.”

And the letter Elijah wrote richochets. _Abhorrent things,_ he had written. Not worse than what she’s done, but still. There was a time when she’d always forgive him; after all, it was his family. Wouldn’t she have done anything to keep safe the ones that she loved? But standing here, with the pull of his eyes and the threat of compulsion a looming fear in the day that will soon turn to twilight, she thinks that she isn’t so sure. He and his family have caused her more harm than she’s ever been willing to voice - and Elena thinks, as his deep stare scrutinizes, that she should be voicing it now. If she were brave, and as selfless as she had once claimed to be, then she would be _voicing_ it now. Somehow she finds it’s too hard, still; too tough of a challenge to tell him as much to his face. It does not stop her from wishing, though, that they could have been close back then. That she would have known him so well in her youth that her saying those things would not make him stagger and wince. _What happened to me?,_ thinks Elena, _The same thing that happened to you. I chose to take care of myself._ And so she tells him,

“I know.”

But it does not make her feel better. It does not make her feel whole. She thinks of how slightly, how _barely_ Damon’d arrived when her car had gone off of the bridge and surpresses a well-hidden shudder. It’s a motion she’s practiced to deftness before, but Elijah still notices, somehow; and a tiny frown creases over him as she wrenches herself further backwards. She feels like the prey humans are to his kind, and is suddenly desperate to _run._ Elena’s never cared about how someone else says her name, but she cares about it with Elijah; takes mark of the way that the vowels weave into the consonants, rolling through the dips and the valleys. It sounds like fine wine, when it slips from Elijah, and Elena is drawn to it just like a moth to a flame. The feel of him takes her back to the derelict farmhouse with its creaking wood stairs and its shafts of dusty, gyrating light, the very color of butter left out in a dish. He has a changed energy, now. It is still just as ancient and deadly to her, but he would not turn it onto her so quickly. Nor, she thinks, are the taut, angry lines of him aimed in Elena’s direction. If she were to touch his face, Elena knows he wouldn’t flinch, but he would not shy away from the touch. Might even, she thinks, return. And she can’t pretend that she has not imagined it - what his hands would feel like, on her body, smoothing their way down her sides and circling around her waist. She shakes the thoughts out and squares her shoulders to the wind and the Original.

“I want you to tell me,” Elijah is saying, “Please, can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“It isn’t,” She says - it is strangled, and stilted, and she finds herself clearing her throat. She hasn’t answered his question yet, and is half surprised that he hasn’t offered a deal; something he can gift her with in return for her sordied story. It makes a genuine smile play on her for the first time in what must be years. He understands that he does not need to trade for what will be freely given, and Elena thinks that she’s never been more grateful. She trusts this man - whose brother tried draining her blood and whose sister was bent on her death - more than anyone else in the world. She doesn’t know how it happened, but she is glad for it, and fiercely. The day has gotten a little warmer for all of his welcoming patience.

“But they thought it was,” Elijah surmises, “Or else you wouldn’t be here. Is that what you’re meaning to tell me?”

Elena huffs. She is tired of everyone guessing what she means to say - if she wanted to say it, then it would be what she said. There is no malice in it, though, only a vague curiosity, an earnest yearning to know what she’s getting at. She appreciates the bluntness of it, how he is unwilling to wait. It’s just like Damon told her. Just because you _have_ an eternity doesn’t mean you should waste it. Elena clings tight to herself, lets herself gather her thoughts. Elijah’s lived for one thousand years. She can take a few minutes to think.

“We should go somewhere else,” She tells him. If Elijah can tell that she’s stalling, he makes no mention of it.

“Of course,” He says, “Would you like to go back to mine?”

“Yours?” Asks Elena, “You live here?”

“I have to live somewhere,” He tells her. “My brother’s house grew… tedious.”

There’s an ominous vertice to it, a hint of low sadness that Elena knows he’s heard in her, so she takes up his hand and grants it the tiniest squeeze.

“Yours,” Says Elena, “I think that I’m okay with that.”

_Anything,_ she thinks, _Just to be closer to you._ They are moving too slowly, she thinks, as she follows him where he will lead. They won’t get there quickly enough. She will have to start running, soon. Looking back over her shoulder. She wonders if he knows the feeling of it, this exile that she’s imposed. Wonders if he even cares, or if, like the others, he’s just looking for a distraction. But this Elijah, she reminds herself, and Elijah made her a promise. _Always and forever,_ he’d told her, and she gets the sense that if she won’t allow him to honor it, she’ll never see him again. Is that what spurs her to say it - to blurt it out in the wide open street, biting her tongue and stiffening as if to sprint? Elena can ask herself later; for now, she watches Elijah’s face when he whirls towards her to listen, catalogues every minute shift in expression and tries to place what it means. It is a fruitless endeavor, she thinks, but Elena knows she has to try.

“I’m young,” She says, when she’s finished with it, “But I won’t be young forever. And he just - didn’t want me like that. What kind of fool does that make me? I only had to do _one thing,_ Elijah, to be with the person I loved. One thing, and I couldn’t do it.”

Elena has no clue how far they have gone. How close they have come to their goal. If she could’ve held it in five minutes more, she could have an excuse not to leave. But the world is splayed out all around them; there are patches of sidwalk between the thrum of the crowd that she can blend into like shadows. The way that it’s done isn’t easy for her, but it can be worth it, sometimes. Her mind forms its own plan without her. _Run,_ it tells her, _And forget this man that you knew. Forget his name and the way he’s been looking at you, as if you are precious and rare. Run, and you’ll never regret it._ The nerves spark up and her view narrows down to where she is standing and where she will be. Somewhere without him, and safe. He is no different from them, she thinks. When push comes to shove, Elijah will want her to live. He will beg with her and plead with her, and no matter how she tries to explain it, he won’t understand why she’s chosen the life that she has. _But it will be your choice,_ a breathier, love-lorn voice says; one that she hears in darkest hours when her hand slips beneath the sheets and circles her skin, his name burning bright in the silence. _It will always, always be yours._

_Always,_ she thinks, _And forever._

_This_ must be what he meant.

“Elijah,” She says, “I forgive you. You don’t have to _worry_ about me, I -”

_Fuck it,_ she thinks - and it is the last thing, because Damon was right, about this. She will not wait for Elijah. Not when he’s already here. He has just enough forethought to pull her behind a building before her mouth is on his, and god if he doesn’t taste _perfect. This,_ thinks Elena, _this_ is where she is going. She is going to give herself to him, and no one can tell her she can’t. If it makes her petty, she’s certain that he doesn’t mind. Elijah’s hands haven’t been idle; they’re working their way up her arms to her elbows, tracing one clean line over her smooth collarbone and winnowing through her hair. Pushing it out of the way.

“Do it,” She says, “Go ahead.”

“No,” Says Elijah, “Not here. God,” He says, “Not like this.”

“Like what, then?” She asks him; pulling back, breathless and slick.

“Like you own my future,” He tells her, “Sweet, lovely Elena. You have such bad taste in men. Surely you know better than to tempt me?”

“With what? My blood,” She asks, “Or my future?”

Elijah chuckles. It sounds, to her, like pure sin.

“Neither,” He tells her, “Your death. You see, when you do that, I find myself in a quandary. I have no choice but to spend the rest of my _very long_ existence convincing you not to go.”

“I’m not going to go,” Says Elena, chancing a glimpse at the street; the freedom which she has abandoned on this, her most foolish dare. “I’m not going to _leave you,_ Elijah.”

“You say that now,” Elijah says, “Knowing that you will not turn. What do you want me to think?”

“That I love you,” She says, “That I’ll be there for you, when you need me.”

It feels strange to say it, but also, she thinks, it is true. It isn’t the love that she thought she would have as a child - the one that she saw in her parents while they were drowning, when Damon pushed inside of her - but it is a love that is _real,_ and she thinks that he feels it too. She _knows_ that he feels it, too. He has said it a million times before now - it was only that she had not listened, or let herself read the writing laid plain on the walls. Elijah Mikaelson does not _make_ deals with Petrovas. Elijah Mikaelson does not _kiss_ women like that. And he does not check to make sure that they are alone; that nobody else can see the glory meant only for them, the power his love radiates. Elena belongs to him. She has belonged to him since the very first time that they met, when he ripped her necklace off with such force that it could’ve killed her and brushed his fingers ever so sweetly over the bruise that it left, as if to say without saying a word that he was sorry for it, the pain that their meeting would cause her to bear, and the agonies she would endure. Elena sinks herself into him. Wills for every atom of her to become a part of Elijah. Surrenders herself to Elijah’s heat and Elijah’s keen solidity. His eyes are darkened by sympathy and by lust, and Elena paws at his shoulder. Forces his gaze back to her.

“Listen to me,” She tells him, and the sureness with which he nods in response is what gives her the courage to say it. “I don’t care what you think about me. I don’t care if you think that I’m selfish, or stupid, or cruel, not wanting to turn. I’m going to _stay_ with you.”

“Where else do you have to go?” Asks Elijah. She tastes the copper of her own blood, and marvels at him anew. She hadn’t realized that she had bitten so hard, but the blood runs a thin trail down her chin, and Elijah’s fangs haven’t descended. Her lips are swollen from kissing him, and her cheeks are flushed pink and hot. She gathers every ounce of conviction. Fights her quicksilver pulse.

“I could go anywhere,” She says, “But I’m going to stay with you.”

“And who will protect you?” Elijah asks, “I’m a busy man, lovely Elena.”

“Then it’s a good thing,” Elena says, “That I know how to protect myself.”

“Mm?” Asks Elijah, and then she is laughing at him.

“ _Christ,_ ” Elena says, _“You_ taught me that. How to fight for myself,” She adds, at his blank, wondering stare. “You really think that _Damon Salvatore_ wanted me not to need him?”

“You give me far too much credit,” He tells her.

“And what will you give me for it?”

The afternoon is bleeding away, hastening into dusk, and the sunset of it haloes him in just the way that she likes.

“Are you negotiating with me?” He asks, a wide grin splaying him open. They are still standing so close together. Elena still tastes him - the spiced cider, fresh bread, spilled ink on parchement flavor that’s entirely, utterly _his._

“That depends,” Elena says, “On what you’re willing to offer.”

She is grinning now, too, and it feels so _good_ to be happy. So _good_ to have hope, for once. There’s no room in her head for Damon. No room for her parents, her brother. Klaus might as well be a nightmare. And Elena would do it a hundred times over to have just this one day with him; this one winter day that has faded into a cold evening, a frigidity she can’t feel. Elena knows he won’t offer himself. Won’t offer her a forever. She doesn’t want one, anyways. But she can see the gears inside of him turning as she makes an honest man think.

“Elijah?” She asks, when no answer escapes him. He flicks his eyes into the space that separates them and tugs her outside of it.

“I don’t want it,” He says, “And I have been told that I am quite ruthless at preventing what I do not want. But I think, for you, that I could make an exception.”

“Yours then?” She asks, as the twilight settles and all the euphoria floods into her in one blazing, crystalline tempest.

“Yes,” Elijah says, “Mine.”


End file.
